A woman was left paralysed after falling off the bed while trying to wake her husband up for sex.
Sophie Rodgers, 44, said she was “bunny hopping” around her husband Guy Rodgers, 53, but “misjudged” a jump.
The former supervisor for the National Trust, who had failed to rouse her husband, tumbled out of the bed and fell unconscious.
She was found by Guy in the early hours of the morning, unable to move her limbs.
When she was taken to the intensive care unit and the specialist spinal unit, Sophie was delivered the devastating news she was unlikely to walk again.
She had suffered a spinal cord injury across several vertebrae at the top of her spine.
A diagnosis of a C4 to C7 spinal injury can lead to paralysis in the limbs, an inability to control bladder and bowel movements or even inability to speak and breathe without help.
Because Sophie’s injury is “incomplete” it means she has some sensation and movement below the injury, as opposed to none at all.
Two years after the incident, which required three operations including to fit titanium rods in her neck, Sophie can walk short distances with a walker and takes a wheelchair out and about.
She is able to use her arms and upper body a little, but can’t lift heavy items, for example.
‘NOT THE SAME’
Sophie said: “I’m not the same person – your brain is the same but it’s like you’ve woken up in someone else’s body. It does change who you are. I’m not the same person, my confidence has gone.
“It’s like you’re mourning the death of your body. You’re mourning it for a long time.
“It’s just affected everything. Even cuddles in bed are difficult because there are patches of skin on my back and when something touches them it feels like they are burning.
“The worst thing is I’m stuck indoors and I’ve got no control over anything at the moment.”
Speaking of the incident, Sophie said: “I was mucking about and bunny hopping over my husband on my hands and knees and just being a wally messing in bed as you do.
“He [Guy] was fast asleep and I was trying to wake him up because I wanted a bit of hanky panky. I tried to wake him up by jumping either side of him.”
Sophie said her husband only spoke to say “get off” because his job required getting up at 4:00am.
It was the most pain I’ve ever experienced. I’ve had three children without any drugs.
“He’d rolled over and gone back to sleep and I sort of jumped back over to my side and I just missed.
“In hindsight I think I must have knocked myself out and I remember waking up and I thought my legs were really cold and I couldn’t move them.
“I was trying to pull myself up on the bed… Then I must have fallen and lost consciousness again or fallen asleep.
“My husband woke up at about 2.30am for his usual toilet break and he saw me on the floor and said ‘what are you doing down there?’.
“I said I’d fallen out of bed and I got so cold I can’t bloody move anything, I can’t even get up.
“I was a dead weight and he picked me up and put me to bed and then he went to the toilet and got back into bed and thought nothing of it, and we fell asleep.
“In the morning he woke up and was getting dressed and he said ‘come on, you’re going to be late for work’ and I just couldn’t move anything.”
The couple, who had just celebrated their first wedding anniversary after getting married four months after knowing each other, rushed to James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough.